This is one of my two most favoured extended range Muffs - alongside TX Pedals’ Animalizzer. I first reviewed the Chief Disruptor back in January of 2022 - where that was a massively evolved and improved take of its Dead Stag Predecessor.

This new Bloodstone Edition has the exact same insides as the original Chief Disruptor - just with that more doomy all-black / blackout Bloodstone colourway - which some will undoubtedly prefer. I’m of course tempted, but I’m loath to double down on pedals...

The Ivan Mazepa 2 takes Drunk Beaver’s celebrated 2022 tribute to the fuzz section of the rare Soviet Poltava Fuzz-Wah (1975) and packs it into a pedalboard-friendly 125B enclosure — roughly half the size of the previos 1590BB version. Entirely distinct from classic Western circuits like the Fuzz Face, Tone Bender, or Fuzz-Tone, this unique hybrid design utilizes NOS vintage Soviet transistors (Silicon KT315B and Germanium GT310B) paired with low-noise modern components to deliver an ...

OFX is shorthand for Oliver FX, named after Brit Richard Oliver, who is 1/3rd of the Chasing Tone Podcast - alongside Brian Wampler and Blake Wyland. He’s long held an interest in DIY Pedal Building and Breadboarding, and with some help from Brian managed to finalised the circuit that became the Purple Ohm Fuzz.

My friend Adrian Thorpe of ThorpyFX was initially meant to be the silent OEM Partner for this project, but Tom Quayle let the cat out of the bag during his demo - that ThorpyFX ...

Riff Lord Mikey Demus of Skindred fame and Adrian Thorpe of ThorpyFX have collaborated for nigh on 7 years now on the Red Beard Effects project - but all good things must come to an end eventually - and that time is now! Mikey has become a proper chart-topping Rockstar with a #1 Album (You Got It!) and massive European and Australian tour in progress. Pedal Brands need a lot of time and effort invested in them - particularly on the promotional side of things, and Mikey just doesn’t have time ...

A super busy month - with plenty of highlights and heatwaves.

My house is finally cooling down as I write these last few observations - we’ve had around 10 days of oppressive heat now, and there’s another wave on the way at the end of this week - which makes for very difficult conditions to have sessions with said pedals.

We’re in the final consequence of global climate change now - with increasingly more extreme weather patterns occurring - alternately cold snaps, heatwaves, and torrential ...

At one stage there was a 50/50 chance as to whether I would make the show - as there were significant disruptions on the Liverpool Street to Norwich line - which meant a bus replacement service between Colchester and Ipswich. Some of the journey times quoted were up to 4 and a 1/2 hours each way! In the end the door-to-door was closer to 3 hours in total! The journey up including the coach was actually more fun that the journey back via Cambridge. Cambridge has obviously sinned grievously as ...

This is essentially the core of the large 8-controls Mountain Mover Fuzz shrunk down to compact dimensions - but with all the fierce essence retained from the original. The Mountain Mover uniquely combines the core character of a searing sort of Ram’s Head Muff with the added Bloom of a Super-Fuzz. It sound superb, and starts of fierce with even the Gain turned all the way down.

So a long and convoluted target mission of mine has at last come to a delightful conclusion! Readers will recall that back in 2023 I launched a mini campaign to get the Blakemore Effects Deus Ex Machina Fuzz revived and reissued. Blakemore Effects had been officially shuttered in 2018, and Blake Hickey had returned to the financial sector.

Here are the two articles from that somewhat fruitless endeavour :

• Blakemore Deus Ex Machina Revival Campaign
• Ex Machina Campaign Follow-up

It ...

Obviously all the PowerBolt Series pedals ship with stock orange knobs - but since I have so many pedals - I need to be able to easily identify what is what - and so I’ve replaced each of those orange knobs with pertinent unique colour replacement knobs.

When The PowerBolt Series launched last year - I bought 4 sets of knobs from Love My Switches. I used the Dark and Light Blue ones on the PowerTrem and PowerVibe pedals last year, and the remaining Purple and Hot Pink / Violet were perfect ...